RINASCIMENTO PRIVATO

Considered by critics to be her masterpiece, it traces the life of Isabella d'Este in the form of a fictional autobiography.

Once again, upon publication critics applaud the way Bellonci portrays historical figures: she shows the same rigor and precision as a professional historian but manages to make each character come alive through the page. Rinascimento privato was awarded the Strega Prize after the author's death, in 1986. Maria Bellonci (1902-1986) was a complex and refined author, whose talent as a storyteller is always intertwined with her historical skills, Maria Bellonci was an Italian novelist, journalist and translator (Stendhal, Zola) and the founder of Italy's most prestigious literary award, the Strega Prize. Her works, such as Lucrezia Borgia and Rinascimento privato, were always based on extensive and detailed research and have been praised for the psychological characterization and their vivid reconstructions, like in Hilary Mantel's novels, which provide the audience with a comprehensive account of History, stripped of the legends of the past. She always nurtured an interest in women's destinies, and in particular in women's right to intellectual affirmation, and her novels focus on the great families of the Renaissance: the Borgias, the Este, the Gonzagas, and the Sforzas.